THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS EPISTLE OF BARNABAS PAPIAS AND QUADRATUS EPISTLE TO DIOGNETUS THE SHEPHERD OF HERMAS EDITED AND TRANSLATED BY BART D. EHRMAN HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS LONDON, ENGLAND 2003 THE SHEPHERD OF HERMAS INTRODUCTION The Shepherd of Hermas was one of the most popular books of early Christianity. Judging from the manuscript remains, it was copied and read more widely in the second and third centuries than any other noncanonical book, even more than many of the books that later came to be in­ cluded in the New Testament. The Shepherd recounts a series of revelations and di­ rect angelic communications to a prophet named Hermas, a Christian from early to mid second-century Rome. Like other ancient apocalypses, the book is ultimately con­ cerned to reveal the divine truths that affect earthly reali­ ties, and to that extent there is some focus on the future course of human events, especially a time of tribulation that Christians will experience before the end of the age, soon to arrive. But even more the book deals with prob­ lems of Christian existence in the here and now, especially the problems of sin and repentance, of Christians remain­ ing faithful to God and returning to him if they have gone astray. It is particularly invested in the question of whether Christians can have an opportunity to repent, if they sin af­ ter being baptized. The short answer is that they do have a second chance—but no more. The book receives its title from the principal angelic mediator and protector of Hermas, the "angel of repen- 162 INTRODUCTION tance," who comes to him, part way through the narrative (Vision 5), in the guise of a shepherd. Overview The Shepherd of Hermas is divided into three sections, given in the manuscripts as a series of five "Visions," twelve "Commandments," and ten "Parables." There is consider­ able overlap among these groups: revelatory parables, for example, are found not only in the final section but in the earlier two as well, and by far the longest unit in the book, the ninth Parable, is a detailed explication of what the author sees in the third Vision. Moreover, many of the themes of each section are repeated and developed in oth­ ers, especially the overarching themes of sin and repen­ tance, but also more specific issues such as wealth and pov­ erty, family relations, business dealings, and indecision towards God ("doublemindedness"). The book begins on an ostensibly autobiographical note (scholars debate whether the self-references are his­ torical or fictional) as Hermas, a freed slave, becomes reac- quainted after some years with his former owner, an attrac­ tive woman named Rhoda, whose beauty and demeanor he admires after observing her bathe in the Tiber river. Soon afterwards he has a vision of Rhoda speaking to him from the sky, telling him that she has been taken up to heaven to accuse him before God because of his evil desire for her. The vision upsets Hermas and drives him to ponder how he might find forgiveness for his sins. In answer to his reflections, he is met by an elderly woman, who, in a series of different guises, provides him with the revelations that make up most of Visions 1-4. 163 SHEPHERD OF HERMAS Each Vision in fact comprises not just one but a series of revelations: in the "second" Vision, for example, Hermas first sees the elderly woman, representing the church, reading a book (ch. 5); he is then given a revelation con­ cerning the meaning of the words of the book (ch. 6); next he has a vision of a young man who speaks to him about the identity of the elderly woman (8.1); and finally the elderly woman herself appears to him again (8.2). The visions of this opening section of the book include revelations about the sins of Hermas s own family, a vision of the upcoming tribulation in the image of a terrifying monster, and a vision of the "tower" of the church that is being supernaturally constructed on earth out of different kinds of stone of varying utility—the most enduring image of the book, which will receive fuller treatment in the ninth Parable. In the fifth Vision a new revelatory agent is introduced, the angelic figure called the Shepherd, the angel set over repentance, who becomes Hermass guide, interpreter, and instructor for the rest of the account. It is the Shep­ herd who delivers the twelve Commandments, each of which, again, consists not of a single commandment but of a series of injunctions covering a wide range of ethical concerns involving personal, sexual, and family relations. Some portions of the Commandments resemble the "two paths" teaching found in Barnabas and the Didache, and we are told in fact that there are two angels who influence humans (ch. 36), just as Gods creations and human incli­ nations are twofold (ch. 38). Following the set of Commandments, the Shepherd then reveals, and usually explains, the ten "Parables," some of which again comprise a series of revelations, alle- 164 INTRODUCTION gories, and parabolic visions. These involve such matters as the nature of Christian existence in this alien world, the relationship of the rich and poor in the church, the need for sexual purity, the hope for repentance in the face of the coming end, the differences among people who react in varying ways to the truth of God, leading to their accep­ tance into or rejection from the church, and the like. The eighth and ninth Parables—allegorical visions of various sticks representing different kinds of people in the world and of various stones that make up the tower (of the church) under construction—are far and away the longest sections of the book, making up nearly two-fifths of the whole. The book ends with instructions to Hermas to carry out his ministry by urging others to engage in good works before it is too late and the construction of the tower of the church is completed. Integrity, Authorship, and Date In view of the disparate material scattered throughout the Shepherd, scholars since the nineteenth century have debated whether the work was originally all of a piece or instead represents several works, possibly of different au­ thors, secondarily combined into one long book. There may be manuscript support for the latter view (see Osiek): one of the surviving manuscripts, the Bodmer papyrus (4th or 5th century) may well have contained only Visions 1-4, whereas another, the third-century Michigan papy­ rus, evidently preserved only the other portions of the text, Vision 5 to the end of the Parables. Moreover, even a quick perusal of the books contents shows striking differences among its various sections: the elderly woman who repre- 165 SHEPHERD OF HERMAS sents the "church" is the divine revealer and interpreter in Visions 1-4, but then disappears for the rest of the book; the shepherd, on the other hand, is absent in this earlier portion but assumes a similar role beginning in Vision 5 to the end. In addition, there appear to be internal discrepan­ cies throughout the book, for example, between the earlier simple vision of the building of the tower in the third vision and the much fuller explication of the image in the ninth Parable. And so some modern scholars have argued that the book is a composite piece, with portions written at differ­ ent times and by different authors (Giet). Others have countered this view, pointing out that (a) when Tertullian and Clement of Alexandria, two of our earliest witnesses to the book (earlier than either of the manuscripts mentioned above), quote the text, they refer to portions of the book that were supposedly, according to this view, circulating independently of one another (this would suggest that the book was a unity from the outset), and (b) extensive simi­ larities tie the various sections of the book together, for ex­ ample, the emphasis on sin, repentance, doubleminded- ness, purity, and the like (Joly, Henne; see Osiek). As a result, some have maintained that the author wrote differ­ ent sections of the book at different times, creating the ap­ parent difficulties. Brox, for example, maintains that Vi­ sions 1-4 were written first; then, somewhat later, Vision 5 through Parable 8; and finally, at a still later time, Parables 9-10. One more recent suggestion is that the composite character of the book results from its origin as an oral, rather than a written, text (Osiek). In any event, the major­ ity of scholars today appear to favor the notion of a solitary author. 166 INTRODUCTION It is difficult to say much about the authors identity apart from the autobiographical information he himself provides, assuming that this information is to be taken as historical self-description. He was evidently a freedman who lived in Rome (thus references to the Tiber in ch. 1 and the Via Campana in ch. 22) and involved with the church there, but not as one of its leaders, of whom he speaks in the third person. His general moral concerns, somewhat superficial theological reflections, especially with regard to christology (e.g., in Parables 5 and 9), and general literary skill have made most interpreters suspect that he was not among the intellectual elite in the church. In any event, some scholars have seen his text as ripe for a sociohistorical analysis of the church in Rome (see Osiek, Maier, Lampe, and Jeffers). Similar considerations have contributed to the view that he was writing some time early in the second century. It is worth noting, for example, that Hermas speaks of the "presbyters" and the "bishops" of the church in Rome (and other leaders, such as apostles, deacons, and teachers), but says nothing about a solitary bishop. Moreover, never does Hermas quote other books that later came to be accepted into the canon as authoritative: his only explicit quotation is of a now-lost work, the Book of Eldad and Modat (7.4). Several other considerations have often played a role in determining his date; unfortunately, these considerations do not harmonize well with one another: (a) At the beginning of the third century, Origen main­ tained that this Hermas was none other than the person mentioned by the apostle Paul in Romans 16:14. (b) Hermas himself mentions someone named "Clem­ ent" in the second Vision (8.2), and indicates that he was a 167 SHEPHERD OF HERMAS kind of foreign correspondent for the Roman church. It has frequently been thought that this is the same person ultimately responsible for the book of 1 Clement, written in the mid 90s (according to Eusebius, the third bishop of Rome). (c) The Muratorian Canon - a list of books that belong to the New Testament, produced possibly in the second half of the second century—indicates that the Shepherd is not to be included among the Scriptures because it was written "recently" by Hermas, while his brother, Pius, was serving as the bishop of Rome. Eusebius (Eccl. Hist. 4,11) indicates that Pius was bishop from 140 to 154. It is difficult to reconcile these three indications of a proximate date for the book, since the time between Pauls letter to the Romans (early 60s?) and Pius of Rome is some 80-90 years. It may be, in any event, that Origen was sim­ ply making a best guess at the identity of Hermas, wanting to make his book "apostolic" (Origen cites it as a scriptural authority), and that, on the other hand, the author of the Muratorian canon was trying to distance Hermas from the times of the apostles, since he did not consider the book on a par with the emerging Christian Scriptures (the date of the Muratorian canon is itself a matter of dispute; see Osiek and the literature she cites). Moreover, the refer­ ence to Clement of Rome is not altogether useful, since 1 Clement never mentions this person, let alone claims him as its author (see Introduction there). It is true that Euse­ bius locates Clement as bishop of Rome towards the end of the first century, but it is possible that Clement assumed a variety of roles in the Roman congregation at different times (on whether Clement was actually a "bishop," see In­ troduction to 1 Clement). 168